This is a guest blog post. The author Vincci is a Philippine-born Belgian citizen based in Denmark who likes to gallivant around the world in her spare time. She works as content manager for 24Slides in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is interested in photography, writing and #gainz. Find her on vincciwrites.com or @vinccimorales Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
A good salesperson with a bad presentation is like driving a car with a flat tire. Can you reach your destination? Probably. But the road will be bumpy and the risks will be high.
Consider this scenario: You are about to present a product to an audience of 30 — that is 30 potential customers waiting to hear your value proposition. So you are a salesperson with a complex product about to present to 30 people of different backgrounds, different priorities, and different ways of understanding things. Your presentation contains a litany of selling points, a myriad of graphs, and a bit of the occasional mini-paragraphs.
Do you think most of your audience will understand your value proposition within a few minutes? No. Do you think most of them will remember the vital details of your elaborate value proposition? No. There goes 30 opportunities down the drain.
Understanding and memorability.
A good sales presentation increases the impact of your value proposition. Like a spotlight, it highlights the key points of your proposition and helps shape the way your customers think about your product. And like a megaphone, it helps you communicate your value proposition loud and clear.
A solid presentation helps sales and it all boils down to two things: understanding and memorability. Consider the scenario again: salesperson, complex product, a varied audience of 30. How fast would your audience understand your value proposition during your presentation? Moreover, how much of it would they remember 15 minutes after they’ve left the room? With a bad presentation, your value proposition could get lost in translation.
A good presentation complements you as a presenter, ensuring that the value of your offer is understood and that it sticks. A study made by the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business found that retention rates of verbal-only presentations ran at 10%, whereas a combination of verbal and visual messages increased the retention rate to 50%.
What is the difference in impact of a good presentation versus a bad presentation?
Besides all of the missed sales opportunities that you just lost to your audience of 30, quite a lot.
As mentioned before, a good presentation increases the impact of your value proposition. A bad presentation distracts your audience from the value that you are offering.
In sales, first impressions last. Your sales presentation carries. A bad presentation also affects how potential customers perceive your brand.
A good sales presentation increases the impact of your message and helps your audience remember what you want them to remember. It influences how potential customers perceive your brand, thus helping them make the right choice — choosing you. With all of that in mind, would you really trust flat tire to get you to your destination?